AMSTERDAM (AP) — A Dutch appeals court Tuesday overturned an order for major Internet providers in the Netherlands to ban access to the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, saying it has proved impossible to enforce.

In 2011, the Hague District Court ordered providers Ziggo and XS4ALL to block customers from accessing a list of IP addresses linked to The Pirate Bay.

Then, the lower court agreed with copyright enforcement organization Brein that the site is frequently used to assist people in downloading copyrighted music, movies and computer games. The Pirate Bay provides an index to locations where pirated files can often be found.

The Internet providers had argued they shouldn't have to act as censors, but the lower court said it is clear the site was often used to find copyrighted works. And it said it would be technically feasible to block the addresses without much trouble, as Brein requested.

On Tuesday, the Hague Appeals Court found that computer users easily evaded the ban. They did this either by reaching cloned versions of The Pirate Bay at numerous alternate addresses, or by using sites that offer similar services. Many just reached the site via "open proxy" servers — computers on the Internet that relayed information from home users to The Pirate Bay and back again anonymously. That masked the users' location in the Netherlands and avoided the ban.

"This blockade imposed a violation of the basic right to freedom of commercial activity of the providers with insufficient justification," the ruling said. "It is of great significance that the providers themselves were not violating copyrights."

The Brein Institute's director Tim Kuik said he was considering appealing the decision to the Dutch Supreme Court.

"The appeal court's decision harms the development of the legal online market, which needs protection against illegal competition," he said in a statement.

Kuik said the decision was contrary to rulings made in other European countries and added that the Court of Justice of the European Union has yet to rule in a similar case.

Shortly after the ruling The Pirate Bay was directly accessible for XS4ALL clients. A similar case is still in the appeals process at the same court for the balance of the major Dutch Internet providers.

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